Jülich Plant Science Seminars (JPSS) - Markus Biesalski - "Tailor-made functional papers – a complex low-cost material in high-tech applications" - TU Darmstadt - 4th of November 2024
Invitation to the Jülich Plant Science Seminar (JPSS) - Prof. Markus Biesalski
Title: Tailor-made functional papers – a complex low-cost material in high-tech applications
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Markus Biesalski
Affiliation: Makromolekulare Chemie & Papierchemie – TU Darmstadt
Abstract:
Paper has been known for thousands of years for its unique profile of properties: bendable & foldable, high mechanical strength, and its pore structure enabling pump-free fluid transport. Its production and recycling can nowadays be seen as technologically well-optimized. It has an environmentally friendly image and fosters the growing desire of the public for sustainable materials solutions. Despite its classical applications as print, packaging and hygiene paper, it has been in focus for several years in very challenging areas, e.g. in lateral flow tests (LFT), light-weight construction materials (e.g. as a honeycomb core in door leaves or shelves), as well as most recently in paper-based packaging as well as paper-based soft robotics. In this talk I will introduce our recent efforts in understanding and tailoring paper properties by controlled functionalization of the fiber and paper-sheet interfaces. Examples progress from the use of functional wax-polymer coatings to modulate barrier properties to cross-linking of polymers with paper fibers to introduce wet-strength properties in a sustainable fashion and the spatial control of interfacial attachment of polymers inside paper to gain 4D paper-based actuators.
Short Biosketch
Markus Biesalski studied chemistry at the University of Mainz, Germany, and received his Ph.D. in macromolecular chemistry in 1999 at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. From 2000-2002 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. In 2002 he joined the Faculty of Technology at the University of Freiburg as an Assistant Professor. In 2008 he accepted a call for a Full-professorship at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he has been since then heading the Laboratory of Macromolecular Chemistry and Paper Chemistry. The scientific core expertise of his group progresses from polymers at interfaces, the understanding of dynamic processes of fluid imibition of porous materials to the development of functional papers for construction applications, functional paper coatings and the use of renewable raw materials for the design of environmentally sustainable materials.